Anti-Gay Myths Promoted and even Preached by Pastors of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, Opening Statement

Anti-Gay Myths Promoted and even Preached by Pastors of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, Opening Statement

If you have been following this blog for the last month or so you are aware that I have written to the President (head bishop) of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, Rev.Matthew Harrison, asking him to condemn the pervasive Anti-Gay Hate Speech emanating from the blogs and websites of LCMS pastors, university professors, and laity.

As of yet Rev. Harrison has not made any public statement on this issue, neither have I received a letter or phone call from Rev. Harrison, his office staff, nor have I heard from any of the District Presidents of the LCMS, every one of whom received a copy of my letter to Rev. Harrison.

I therefore intend to press on with my campaign against the LCMS for its promotion, publication, and refusal to condemn, anti-gay hate speech. I intend to present evidence of this LCMS hate speech to every major Human Rights organizations in the United States, asking them to label the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod as a Hate-promoting organization unless the LCMS publically and without reservation condemns and promises to discipline its pastors who participate in this ugly, bigoted behavior.

The first human rights organization to which I intend to direct my focus is the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama. Below is the mission statement of the SPLC, and further below, a definition anti-Gay Hate speech as defined by SPLC:

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The Southern Poverty Law Center monitors hate groups and other extremists throughout the United States and exposes their activities to law enforcement agencies, the media and the public. We publish our investigative findings online, on our Hatewatch blog, and in the Intelligence Report, our award-winning quarterly journal. We’ve crippled some of the country’s most notorious hate groups by suing them for murders and other violent acts committed by their members.

Since 2000, the number of hate groups has increased by 56 percent. This surge has been fueled by anger and fear over the nation’s ailing economy, an influx of non-white immigrants, and the diminishing white majority, as symbolized by the election of the nation’s first African-American president.

These factors also are feeding a powerful resurgence of the antigovernment “Patriot” movement, which in the 1990s led to a string of domestic terrorist plots, including the Oklahoma City bombing. The number of Patriot groups, including armed militias, skyrocketed following the election of President Obama in 2008 – rising 813 percent, from 149 groups in 2008 to an all-time high of 1,360 in 2012. The number fell to 1,096 in 2013.

This growth in extremism has been aided by mainstream media figures and politicians who have used their platforms to legitimize false propaganda about immigrants and other minorities and spread the kind of paranoid conspiracy theories on which militia groups thrive.

Fighting Hate in CourtIn the early 1980s, SPLC co-founder and chief trial counsel Morris Dees pioneered the strategy of using the courts to battle organized, violent hate groups. Since then, we have won numerous large damage awards on behalf of victims of hate group violence. These cases are funded entirely by our supporters; we accept no legal fees from the clients we represent.

Among the groups shut down by crushing jury verdicts in SPLC cases are the White Aryan Resistance, the United Klans of America, the White Patriot Party militia and the Aryan Nations.

These cases have made the SPLC and Dees reviled enemies of the extremist movement. Our headquarters in Montgomery has been the target of numerous plots by extremist groups, including a firebombing that destroyed our offices in 1983. Several dozen people have been sent to prison for plotting against Dees or the SPLC.

Training Law Enforcement

SPLC representatives communicate regularly with law enforcement agencies about extremist activity and conduct in-person training for officers at the local, state and federal level. Thousands of officers have received training that helps them recognize and deal with hate crimes as well as threats posed by extremists. This training is available free to law enforcement agencies.

Even as some well-known anti-gay groups like Focus on the Family moderate their views, a hard core of smaller groups, most of them religiously motivated, have continued to pump out demonizing propaganda aimed at homosexuals and other sexual minorities. These groups’ influence reaches far beyond what their size would suggest, because the “facts” they disseminate about homosexuality are often amplified by certain politicians, other groups and even news organizations. Of the 18 groups profiled below, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) will be listing 13 next year as hate groups, reflecting further research into their views; those are each marked with an asterisk. Generally, the SPLC’s listings of these groups is based on their propagation of known falsehoods — claims about LGBT people that have been thoroughly discredited by scientific authorities — and repeated, groundless name-calling. Viewing homosexuality as unbiblical does not qualify organizations for listing as hate groups.

Gary:

That last sentence is critical. Just because a religious group, such as a Church, such as the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, believes that homosexuality is a sin or unbiblical does notqualify it as a hate group. If the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod would simply stick to this core teaching, I would not have an issue with them (I would refuse to attend their churches, send my children to their schools, or support any of their social organizations) but I would not be campaigning to have them placed on a Hate Watch List.

But the pastors and university professors of the LCMS are not satisfied to simply teach that homosexuality is unbiblical and a sin. No, many LCMS pastors and prominent LCMS laity engage in online demonization of gay men and women, whipping up anti-gay hysteria and hate, based on unfounded stereotypes, sometimes by making these demonizing statements themselves, but more often, allowing their readers to state—without any rebuke, condemnation, or threat of banishment—some of the most vile, anti-gay hate speech found on the internet.

HeadquartersLutheran Church-Missouri SynodSt. Louis, Missouri

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It is for this active and passive demonization of law-abiding gay and lesbian Americans that the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, LCMS President Matthew Harrison, the thirty something LCMS District Presidents, and the Board of Directors of the official publishing house of the LCMS, Concordia Publishing House, must be taken to task until they apologize, cease, and desist of their bigoted, hateful, un-American behavior.

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